


Cookies Like Me

by vi_violetrose



Category: Cookie Run (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28302540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vi_violetrose/pseuds/vi_violetrose
Summary: Wizard Cookie visits the Wizard Archives to find books that will help him with his newest spell. He discovers that he knows so much less about the world than he thought.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Cookies Like Me

**Author's Note:**

> A piece for the official Cookie Run gift exchange. Absolutely filled with unnecessary worldbuilding and infodumps about magic.

The City of Wizards was desolate. The streets were lined with buildings, observatories and watchtowers and all things that reached upward in a way that made the City seem to arch over, curling in within itself like the claws of a great beast, reaching for the small Cookie who found himself here again. But no one was here but him, and the one Cookie he knew remained in the Archives. Wizard Cookie clutched his Candy Wand and held it closely to his chest, as though a young child would with a teddy bear when frightened by nightmares. He was, of course, a child. He knew he shouldn’t venture to the City alone, what with all its dangers, but he couldn’t help it. The dangers were _enticing._

There was a lingering presence in the City, one that would follow any visitors wherever they should go and make them feel as though, somehow, the City was not abandoned after all. The magic of the Wizards lived long after them, and anyone who had even a basic understanding of the properties of magic would find this as no wonder, as magic is an energy, and does not disappear, but rather moves from one thing to another. What was a bit curious was that magic still resided in a city long abandoned. This presence wasn’t some magical energy bound to an artifact, but almost… the City itself. It followed like a snake. Wizard Cookie could only wonder what the ancient Wizards were like, feeling their presence around him. How could this city possibly be abandoned? He wondered every time he visited how the creators of a city of such grandeur could’ve just… vanished. 

There was so much on his mind. He almost walked in circles looking for the Archives-- Again, how could he not find it? It was an extraordinarily large place. Poor Blueberry Pie Cookie, on that front… It must be a lot to manage alone. Wizard Cookie had a feeling that Wizards were meant to be loners, recalling his own sleepless nights of research spent in solitude; nearly pulling his hair out trying to figure out how to get a spell to work, but having no one to turn to but his books. In a sense, books were company, as the words inked upon their pages were penned by a Cookie, an extension of themself that lived long after they crumbled. It was comforting seeing the subtle differences between the writing of textbooks, taking on their own character even when meant to be purely informational. Wizard Cookie hoped that one day he could write his own books like that, and that another young Cookie would read them decades after and wonder what their author was like. The Wizards could have been just like him…

Wizard Cookie’s thoughts trailed there, frustration beginning to settle within him. Prophet Cookie found the Archives so easily, why couldn’t he? Was it concealed by magic? He supposed the whole city was, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. It was possible to use a spell to find things with such charms upon them, but in a place with so much magic about, Wizard Cookie would rather stay away from using spells lest he spring a trap. The Wizards built this place so intricately, so they wanted to protect their creations. Wizard Cookie had set off a trap or two the first time he visited, and never done so again. 

He remembered, then, that the Archives appeared within to be a normal library. Despite that it harbored cursed artifacts and dangerous magic tomes, there was a lack of magic about it. Perhaps that was what made it so difficult to find. Did it not want to be found?

At that last thought, Wizard Cookie looked up and was met with that which he seeked: The towering entrance of the Wizard Archives, staring down at him and reminding him of his diminutiveness as if it were important information. The young Cookie shivered and attempted to stave off the feelings of fear crawling up his back, then made up the steps and into the Archives.

Empty of Cookies and empty of magic, but full of books the Archives were. Wizard Cookie wondered if he should look first for a book or for the Archivist, since he recalled she’d offered to give him a tour. That might help him locate what he needs, too… Hopefully it wouldn’t be in the Restricted Section. But how was he to go about finding her? He’d only been here once before and immediately gotten sucked into a tome, much to Blueberry Pie’s dismay. Causing a ruckus or doing something dangerous would certainly get her attention, but he didn’t particularly want to endanger himself, and there were probably better ways of finding her.

Wizard Cookie wandered. How far could one wander here until it was too far? The Archives were so large he thought that he could lose himself here, like a forest with bookshelves as trees and books as leaves… And, just like a forest, papers were scattered upon the ground like leaves that had fallen. The scattered papers were a sign he had wandered deeply enough, as a voice spoke to him as soon as his eye had spotted them. 

“Why have you returned here?” The cold voice was a familiar one, that of the Archivist, Blueberry Pie Cookie. Wizard Cookie snapped his gaze away from the papers and looked up at her.

“I’ve visited the City a few times,” Wizard Cookie began, “but I had never seen the Archives until last time. The prospect of such a large and daunting place remaining unseen to me all this time was fascinating, and I could tell that this place must have a wealth of knowledge within it! I’ve been working on a spell for awhile, and I’m really stumped. I’d like to find something that can help-- I’m sure there are countless texts on both the topics of transmutation and spell creation?”

Blueberry Pie Cookie was silent for a moment, then at first answered with simply the slightest of smiles. Her eyes lit up behind her spectacles, and she turned away. “I will give you a tour. Come with me,” she said, and began to walk down an aisle of bookshelves.  
Wizard Cookie scurried after her, smiling under his scarf. 

Blueberry Pie Cookie led him through many rows of books, detailing the intricate systems through which they were organized; occasionally, a tome would flutter by, flapping its pages like wings, but they were docile. One such tome tugged at one of Wizard Cookie’s sleeves, playfully like a pet, until Blueberry Pie Cookie waved it off and muttered, “Pay them no mind.”  
The Wizard Archives were full of wonders. Even if a grand majority of such wonders were books, be they textbooks or tomes, Wizard Cookie laid his eye upon them all with intense admiration. As he followed Blueberry Pie Cookie down one particular aisle, her tome opened and its specter unfurled itself from within, slowly winding outwards and reaching towards one of the high shelves. It snagged one of the books then pulled itself back to Blueberry Pie Cookie, letting her take it in her hand. “This text should provide you with some information on the topics you requested,” she spoke. Wizard Cookie stood on the tips of his feet to get a look at the cover-- _On the Creation of Spells,_ by Scholiast the Sophisticated. Wizard Cookie had seen that name on textbooks he had read before.

“I know that author,” Wizard Cookie remarked curiously. “I thought I had read all of his works already; I didn’t know he had written more books.” 

Blueberry Pie Cookie turned an inquisitive eye to Wizard Cookie. “Is that so? Most texts penned here did not travel out of the City; it is likely that the tomes you’ve stumbled across were taken from here long after the time of the Wizards.” 

Wizard Cookie frowned at that. All these books snuggled within the shelves, then… they were all written and created by Cookies from a distant past. It was difficult to stomach that truth, that so many books were created and stowed away where they would never be read again. These could have been those Cookies’ life’s work… all for nothing. Would his own accomplishments end up like that?

“... Blueberry Pie Cookie,” he began timidly, “why do all of these books stay in the Archives?”

She came to a slow stop in her stroll around the Archives, the specter from her tome now reaching for a book on a low shelf. “That is not a question I can answer.” Blueberry Pie Cookie glanced at the cover of the textbook with a forlorn gaze, then met Wizard Cookie’s eye again. “There are many dangers residing within these walls that must be contained here. But as Keeper of the Archives, I swore an oath to preserve the texts that should come to this place; it is not within my duties to send them away.”

“But all of this knowledge is just being hoarded!” Wizard Cookie cried. “The Wizards learned so much, and wrote it down so we could learn from them, and learn even more! Shouldn’t we share their findings with everyone?” 

A thoughtful silence was the immediate response. “You are permitted to check out books from here.”

Silence in return, for a moment. “Why can’t the Archives become public again?”

“It is dangerous here,” Blueberry Pie Cookie reiterated, and began to walk again. She gestured to a large door bound with chains and a padlock and with curtains draped around it. “Beyond that door is the Restricted Section.” She looked to Wizard Cookie to observe his curious expression. “You are not, by any means, permitted to enter. Wipe the very thought from your mind, as a simple mistake in judgement there could determine the fate of your life.” 

Wizard Cookie’s eye fell upon the cursed tome in Blueberry Pie Cookie’s arm. “Why are cursed artifacts created if they don’t bring any good?”

“That,” she replied, “is a common misconception. I will assume you are familiar with the basic principles of magic. Power comes at a cost, whether it be a complex incantation, or more intricate rune required… Curses come in two forms. Do you know what they are?”

“Contracts and hexes?”

“That is correct. Contracts, in spite of their names, do not have to be entered willingly. They are founded upon conditions, and they offer the victim benefits. Hexes are forced upon a victim and bring no good fortune, but can be dispelled.”

“I thought contract curses can be dispelled,” Wizard Cookie asked.

“... They can, in a sense,” Blueberry Pie Cookie replied and pushed up her glasses. She turned away from the door to the Restricted Section and began leading Wizard Cookie up a staircase. “Hexes can be removed by destroying them at their roots, whether that be killing the caster or destroying an object, but contracts cannot be lifted through any means other than what is written within them.”

“Are all contract curses found within tomes, then?” Wizard Cookie lifted his robes as they went up the steps, careful not to trip.

“Yes. They have written conditions that the victim of the curse must be made aware of before entering.” 

“Then… how does someone get forced into a contract curse?”

“Coerced into reading the conditions, perhaps, or being seized by the curse after reading them. The victim does not have to find themself in agreeance.”

The thought of being bound to a curse just because you knew of it was terrifying. “The tomes in the Restricted Section contain contract curses, then?”

“Some of them. Others harbor different dangers. So long as you understand not to enter, you will be allowed to return to the Wizard Archives. It is not necessary to know all the details.” Before Wizard Cookie could ask more on the subject, Blueberry Pie Cookie gestured with her head to some drawers and stacks of papers. “This is where records are kept. Mostly inventory, but you may find such things as death certificates and duel records. I doubt they will be comprehensible to you.”

Wizard Cookie still wanted to know more about curses, but the new information caught his attention also. “Duel records? I didn’t know the Wizards had duels.”

“Most were rather brief and served to be little spectacle,” Blueberry Pie Cookie answered. “It was a rare occurrence for a Wizard to be struck down in a duel, but records were kept nonetheless. There are a few cases on record of duels that ended in death.” 

Wizard Cookie couldn’t imagine using magic on other Cookies. He frowned at the very thought. “Why did the Wizards duel each other?”

“Most often for petty squabbles.”

That was a dissatisfying answer. Suddenly, another question popped into his mind. “Would you let me see the death certificates?”

Blueberry Pie Cookie stopped in her trails again. “I doubt they will provide you with anything to take away.”

“But if that doesn’t mean no,” he persisted, “I want to know how Scholiast the Sophisticated died. Historians always argue about that.”

Blueberry Pie Cookie raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” She frowned, her stoic look replaced with one of sorrow. “My prior statement stands in that it will provide you with naught.”

The look on her face instantly made Wizard Cookie feel bad for asking, but it also made him wonder. His young and curious mind couldn’t stop formulating questions here. “Did you… know him?”

“I did,” Blueberry Pie Cookie answered curtly. “You don’t need to--”

“What was he like?”

“... Please allow me to finish speaking before raising more questions.”

“But I want to know,” he insisted. “You knew the ancient Wizards? Were they just like me?”

“Personal inquiries are unrelated to a tour of the Archives,” she sighed, then set down another staircase with Wizard Cookie in tow. “I have remained alone here for many years. I fulfill my duty and nothing more.”

It seemed as though, somehow, she was avoiding the question. “That seems lonely.” Wizard Cookie was searching for a reply and got none from that, descending down the spiral staircase in silence. “I still want to know about the ancient Wizards. It doesn’t have to be personal.”

“You may learn of them through reading the texts I provide you,” Blueberry Pie Cookie answered. Wizard Cookie got the impression that all of this _was_ personal, and he felt saddened by that. She must have had many old friends that were now long gone.

“Well… okay.” It was rude to pry any more into something she clearly didn’t want to talk about, and it didn’t seem like he would be able to come up with a way to circumvent it. Yet, with the nature of being a child, he continued to ask. “Do you ever miss them?”

Despite that that question received no reply either, the way Blueberry Pie Cookie tensed up was answer enough. The two Cookies found themselves at the bottom of the staircase, and Blueberry Pie Cookie held out the two textbooks to Wizard Cookie. He was hesitant to accept them, however, because they looked terribly heavy, and he was awfully small.

“You may check these out,” Blueberry Pie Cookie said to him, then quirked an eyebrow at his hesitance. “Is something amiss?”

“Well…” There was no way to explain this without embarrassing himself. He didn’t want to look like he was little and weak! “I think it would be tiring to carry these all the way back home.”

Blueberry Pie Cookie, then, looked a bit ashamed. “I apologize. I had not considered that.” After a bit of thought, she set the books down on a nearby desk then left to another room, telling Wizard Cookie to wait a moment for her to return. Don’t move, and don’t touch anything.

Wizard Cookie followed the instructions closely, fear threading itself into his little heart from the talk of curses earlier. He was still curious… he still wanted to _know._ But knowing that that mindset of his could get him wind up in a curse was troubling indeed. The silence began to suffocate him as he was left alone with his thoughts, a shiver creeping up his back and dread pooling in his stomach. It seemed like there _was_ such thing as knowing too much, after all. The Archives was beginning to lose its wonder to him, being replaced in his mind with some kind of… magical haunted house. He looked warily at the textbooks left on the floor for him, like he would be bound to a contract curse if he touched them. Carefully, he sat on the floor beside them.

_The Idiosyncrasies of Transmutation._ It was another book written by Scholiast the Sophisticated, and Wizard Cookie’s eye fell upon his name and stayed there as though entranced by it. Scholiast’s books were the sort you would read in magic schools, and teachers would talk of him like he was one of the greatest wizards in history. Yet… seeing these books here, books by him that were probably unseen by anyone still alive today… well, Wizard Cookie didn’t know what to think of it. He thought he knew everything there was to know about this great ancient wizard, and it was revealed to him now that he probably barely knew anything at all in the grand scope of things. Somehow, it made him feel small. Despite all of that, it was comforting seeing these books…

Wizard Cookie flipped open to the first page. _Transmutation,_ it read, _despite being one of the core categories of magic, is easily one of the most misunderstood. It encompasses other types of magic, akin to the elemental umbrella, but is amorphous and flexible as opposed to the rigid hierarchy of elemental magic. Types such as shapeshifting and alchemy (not inherently an act of transmutation magic but can be) are easily identified, but transmutation at its core is about altering the properties of matter. That is why it is essential to define transmutation in order to understand it, but as more research is conducted and more of magic is known to us, one’s grasp on understanding slips away. In order to define transmutation, then, we will not identify its functions, but the properties it does not possess. It is too broad of a category, and to define it as simply altering the properties of matter, despite perhaps being truthful, is limiting. It is a magic of the mind and will not prove to be of much use if the caster is not able to think creatively. Is transmutation, then, linked with the art of spell creation?_

_Spells are typically thought to be casted through use of an incantation or rune, but one spell that encompasses the altering of matter is an impossibility. How, then, does transmutation work? Suppose you want to cast a water spell. We know that water can also be casted as snow or as ice, and those forms come with different runes and incantations, adjusted to fit the form of water you wish to cast. The intensity of the spell may be altered by the amount of energy expended casting it, or by etching more details onto the runes, or changing the incantation to fit a more appropriate meaning. A water spell, in the form of liquid water, could be cast as perhaps a flood or a rainfall. There is great flexibility, but ultimately they are all derived from the same root, being water. In the case of transmutation, there is no base incantation or rune provided that can be altered in this way. One would not transmute an unsuspecting victim into a frog the same way one would transmute a desk into a chair, even if they are both the changing of one thing into another. In fact, part of an object or living thing can be transmuted rather than the whole, which opens up another branch that is unique to transmutation…_

“Quite the curious sort you are, Wizard Cookie.” 

Wizard Cookie’s head snapped up at the sound of Blueberry Pie’s voice, and he awkwardly closed the book. He hadn’t even finished reading the first page, and his head was already spinning from all the information (but that was about what he had expected from this author). “Of course! I… want to understand magic just like the ancient Wizards did.”

Blueberry Pie Cookie gave a light smile, then picked up the books and bound them together with a thread; laced within the thread was a charm in the shape of a feather. She handed the two books over to Wizard Cookie. “So long as you keep the books bound by the enchanted thread, they will be light as a feather.”

The large books were passed into Wizard Cookie’s small arms, and much to his surprise, they were indeed no trouble to carry. “Wow! I’d like to learn how to enchant objects like that! This would be so convenient…” Magic could really do so many things, things that he had not even began to consider.

“The creation of magical artifacts is a rather advanced topic, and it comes with a breadth of repercussions.” Blueberry Pie Cookie adjusted her glasses. “I hope these books will provide you with the information you need to create your spell.”

Wizard Cookie didn’t need to be told any more about dangerous magic for now. He nodded, earnestly. “Thank you very much, Blueberry Pie Cookie. I’ll take these home and study them closely. I’ll return when I’m done with them!”

She nodded in reply. “Be safe on your journey home.” 

Wizard Cookie smiled at her, then turned and made his way out of the Archives. But just before he left the door, he stopped and looked back at Blueberry Pie Cookie. He didn’t know why, maybe it was the guilt of pestering her about her past, or knowing that she was almost certainly afflicted by a contract curse, or feeling sympathy for her loneliness, or maybe he was simply bad at goodbyes. Blueberry Pie Cookie noticed him, and nodded at him again in acknowledgement.

“Say hello to Cinnamon Cookie and Prophet Cookie,” she said, and though her smile was too small to be seen from afar, Wizard Cookie could hear it in her voice.


End file.
